


Directionless

by superfluouskeys



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Post-War, a rewrite from 4 years ago
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 06:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16236194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: You can try to put things back to the way they were before, but they'll never be quite the same.





	Directionless

**Author's Note:**

> I joined a Cissamione discord where my one chapter of content was brought to light andin the process of trying to update it I realized I couldn't stand the style anymore, so here it is rewritten!

Hermione traced a finger along the ridged edge of a picture frame, felt the faint hum of magic where the picture it contained had been changed and then changed back, never quite the same as before.  She remembered how the little girl in the photo had been so certain that she would follow in the footsteps of her parents, so certain that would make her happy.  Still, she had been not only delighted, but relieved when a new path had been presented to her.

She traced her thumb over the outline of her parents, younger in the photo, changed and changed again since it was taken.  They didn't quite know what to do with her these days, she knew, but they were happy to have her around, and their confusion regarding her sudden desire to be close with them soothed her as much as it pained her.  They needn't know everything that had happened.  Some people just couldn't handle that sort of horror.

Hermione wasn't so certain she bore it very well, herself.

Suddenly stifled by the confines of her childhood home, Hermione took to the streets of London with no particular aim in mind.  She could say it was to clear her head, but her thoughts felt vague and distant, perhaps too much to grasp all at once.  Her future loomed before her, more uncertain than it had ever been, and Hermione Granger was wholly unaccustomed to feeling uncertain.

She could return to Hogwarts to finish her schooling, certainly, and indeed it seemed a logical course of action for her.  She would be a bit older than her classmates, far more in experience than in age, but surely there would be others who returned with the same goals in mind.  Professor McGonagall had proven a phenomenal mentor to her in what felt like wildly disparate stages of her development, and there was no denying that it would be a tremendous comfort to shroud herself in the familiar.

Still, Hermione wondered whether that weren't the desire of some nagging inner thing that urged her to look and look and look and never leap, as much a part of her as skin and bone, but no more truthful to what she believed to be right.  Would returning to Hogwarts be a vain attempt to return to a time already lost?  An attempt to hold onto friends who would no longer be there alongside her and a sense of belonging she had never experienced anywhere else?

A sense of belonging she feared she might lose, without a common cause in which she could clearly see her own purpose?

Hermione made her way to the pub that held a portal to the wizarding world without fully intending to, and only paused when she had already entered Diagon Alley without even thinking.  She looked around at a sea of faces personally unfamiliar, oblivious to the machinations of her own mind, and wondered whether she ought to take this as some sort of sign from herself.  Perhaps she had been missing the magical world more than she realized.

Perhaps she had been avoiding the magical world and the decisions regarding her future that came with it.  She couldn't very well return to the Muggle world forever, after all.  Not now, after all of this.  She couldn't turn her back on the twitch of a smile she felt as she passed the Owl Emporium, or the twinge of nostalgia as she watched a small gaggle of children gaze wide-eyed at a shop which no longer belonged to Ollivander.  The magical world was her home, far more than the Muggle world had ever been.

Diagon Alley in itself did not provide the rush of familiarity Hermione craved, but Flourish and Blotts certainly did.  The moment the door swung closed behind her, she inhaled as though she had been suffocating.  She traced her fingertips idly across the spines of books as she walked, occasionally took one out to examine it, but she found she hadn't the faintest idea of what might catch her attention on this particular afternoon, and this realization dampened her spirits considerably.  However was she to rediscover her motivation if she didn't know where to begin?

A seventh-year Transfigurations textbook gave her pause, and she traced the letters thoughtfully with her fingers.  She could go back.  It would be so easy, so logical, and then she would have more time before—

Something caught her eye, out of place in the dark, rich tones of Flourish and Blotts, and Hermione looked up without thinking.  She locked eyes with Narcissa Malfoy, and cold panic shot through her, appropos of nothing.

"Miss Granger," said Narcissa with a nod.

There was no reason to be afraid, Hermione told herself.  Narcissa Malfoy's concern, Harry had told them, was for the wellbeing of her son.  She had spared Harry's life when it counted, and Harry had seen to it that she had been treated very leniently.  He had even posited that Narcissa did not personally hold the same beliefs as her associates, and indeed, never had.  But Harry was an idealist, and he did not see the world in shades of grey.  People could be all bad or all good to Harry.  There was little room for ambiguity, or even sometimes for change.

"Mrs. Malfoy," said Hermione, strained and belated.

Narcissa's ice blue eyes flicked down and back up.  "Then you'll be returning to Hogwarts, after all?" she asked.

"Oh, I..." Hermione followed the path her eyes had taken, contemplated the Transfigurations textbook with a strange, muddled emotion.  "I haven't quite decided," she said to the book.

"I'm certain a young lady of your...reputation...has many avenues available to her," said Narcissa, and though the words sounded as though they ought to be mocking, or disparaging at the very least, they were not.

Hermione looked up, surprised.  "Well," she managed, and struggled to think of something to say that encompassed even a fraction of the swirling thoughts she had not even been able to work out within the safety of her own mind.  "It's...a lot to think about," she finished lamely.

The corner of Narcissa's lip twitched subtly, and Hermione could not quite tell whether it was a smile or a sneer.  "Relish your freedom, Miss Granger," she said.

There ought to have been malice behind her words, or at the very least a cutting edge.  Hermione ought to have felt incensed, indignant that a high-born criminal who would have spat upon her not a few years prior still saw fit to pretend that she was somehow superior, that Hermione had the gall to lament her future when Narcissa had lost everything, and might perhaps never have had much of a choice to begin with—

But Narcissa hadn't said any of that, not even with her tone.

"I think I will," said Hermione instead, and began to back away, desperate to be anywhere else.

"Miss Granger?" Narcissa spoke once more, just as Hermione made to turn away.

Hermione froze.  Narcissa averted her eyes briefly.  "I'm..." she began, perhaps a bit awkwardly, "...having a small party tomorrow evening.  It's a..." she shook her head subtly, "...thin attempt at mending fences, if I do say so, but I suppose such events look good in the eyes of the Ministry.  I expect your presence would be most welcome, if you'd like to attend."

Hermione could not quite manage to hide her incredulity.  Narcissa Malfoy was inviting her to a party?  If Harry and Ron could only be here to see—!

But this thought came with a surprising twinge of regret, and of loneliness.  Harry had tucked himself away from the world to recover in his own fashion, but Ron was practically desperate for Hermione's company, only—only she feared she'd ruined everything in a moment of utter insanity, convinced that she might die, or that one moment might change the very fabric of the universe, only it hadn't, and now she missed something that had been lost to her far longer than she'd realized.

In the present, Narcissa raised her eyebrows, and while Hermione found it profoundly jarring that a Malfoy was being polite to her at all, it was especially bizarre given that Hermione could not seem to act like a person today.

"Are you sure?" Hermione stammered at last.  "I mean, do you want me to come?"

Narcissa's eyes seemed to flash with something unreadable, though her features remained impassive.  "I imagine I would find your company interesting, at the very least, supposing we might conduct future exchanges at a slightly...accelerated tempo."

Hermione felt her cheeks flush, and found herself befuddled anew by the strange colour of amusement in Narcissa Malfoy's cold voice.

"And who knows?  Perhaps you might find the party useful, either in making a decision regarding your...bright future," Narcissa inclined her head, and this time when her lip twitched, Hermione could tell it was a smirk, "or in relishing your freedom."

She pushed past Hermione on her way to the door, gently, like a passing breeze, then paused, tall and elegant and looming, and eyed Hermione a moment.  "I trust you know how to dress appropriately," she said, far more like the Narcissa Hermione would have expected.

Hermione found herself watching dumbfounded as Narcissa's white-blonde hair disappeared into the light of day like a strange apparition.  She glanced back at the Transfigurations textbook, gave the spine one last affectionate caress, and then moved onto another bookcase, certain at the very least that there was no going backward.


End file.
